HispanicTrending

Driving the Ford Shelby GT500

By Juan Tornoe

With a 5.4L Supercharged 4V V8 engine, me and my kids needed a spatula to get ourselves off the seats after putting the pedal to the metal on this beauty.  Yes it is a gas guzzler (and it pays the taxes to prove it!), but you know what you are getting into, and it is worth every penny, if excitement is what you are looking for. My kids and I have been dashing around town in the Shelby for about a week now; my little one says, “Este carro está CHILERÍSIMO!”, while the older one hollers, “Me siento como un REY!”

Although its outside looks are impeccable:

It does not compare to the experience from behind the wheel:

I tell you, there was serious discussion at home on what needed to be done to keep one of these babies for good; both kids are eager to part with their piggy banks in exchange to keeping the Shelby.

On a side note, the machine is a magnet for guys, young and old alike, who crave for performance and  speed; I drive what my kids have unanimously labeled now as a lame car (undisclosed make and model, I’ll only say it is made in the U.S.A.), but while cruising with the Shelby, we’ve definitely noticed heads turning, thumbs “upping”, fingers pointing, and hands gesturing among other things the car’s incredibly cool logo.

This is my first time driving a stick shift in the US, and believe that wouldn’t drive one again unless it was something similar to the pure awesomeness of this amazing Ford car.

Hispanic shoppers more confident in economy

July 10, 2009
Source: Home Textiles Today

Hispanics are more inclined to “live for today because tomorrow is uncertain” – an attitude that translates to and explains the ethnic group’s tendency to spend more on big-ticket items, like home entertainment, than the general market.

This and other insights about current Hispanic consumer trends were shared today during a webinar presented collaboratively by consumer research firm BIGresearch, based here, and Televisa Publishing and Digital, which claims to be the largest Hispanic content producer worldwide.

The presentation was titled “Five Major Themes Impacting Hispanics During the Recession,” and Televisa marketing manager Mariana Toledo began the noon-time segment offering the five themes.

    * Despite the recession, Hispanics are more confident about the economy than the general market.
    * With gasoline prices on the rise, Hispanics are looking for value and efficiency when shopping. As a result of the economic crisis, Hispanics are not as willing to invest in the stock market as the general market.
    * However, with the economy in tough shape, they are more likely than the general market to increase their savings and pay with cash more often.
    * Hispanics are more likely to live in the moment, and therefore spend on more big-ticket items than the general market.
    * Compared to three years ago, Hispanics are decreasing their overall spending and focusing on essentials and paying off their debts.

“The recession is affecting everyone,” she asserted. “In the four-year period from March 2006 to March 2009, there was a decrease in consumer confidence for both Hispanics and the general market.”

Specifically, this was true of 34% of Hispanics and 37% of the general market.

But there have been noticeable differences between the general market and Hispanic shoppers.

The lowest point of Hispanic consumer confidence was March 2008 at when it reached 32.6%, compared to that of the general market, which hit 19.5% in March 2009.

“Hispanics have been gaining more confidence since March 2008 despite the recession,” Toledo noted.

Fluctuating gas prices have similarly affected all consumers, causing both Hispanics and the general market to adjust their shopping behavior and also their spending.

But more than the general market, Hispanics are reducing their spending on dining out and clothing. They also are driving less by carpooling more.

In terms of agreeing with the idea, “Live for today because tomorrow is so uncertain,” 31.5% of Hispanics agree with this while only 24.9% of the general market agrees.

“Confidence in the economy correlates and translates into future spending,” Toledo continued, “and Hispanics are more likely than the general market to make major, big-dollar purchases in almost every category, with the exception of home improvement and vacation/travel.”

She later offered advice to companies looking to target Hispanic shoppers.

“Taking control of your message in advertising can make all the difference for the brand,” Toledo said. “Consumer insight is now more important that ever. Knowing what your consumer wants to hear can make all the difference for the brand.”

Food Lion caters to Latinos

Jul. 11, 2009
BY SUE STOCK

A year after it began testing a new store format geared toward Hispanic shoppers, Food Lion is expanding it in two more North Carolina markets and making plans to convert 10 more Triangle stores.

Responding in part to growth in the more than $30 billion Hispanic grocery market, the Salisbury-based grocer began testing the format in August of last year, converting five Triangle stores into ones carrying a much wider array of Hispanic products.

Along with significantly bulked-up selections of dry goods such as beans, tortillas and spices, the stores also carry cuts of meat and produce items popular with Hispanic shoppers.

The employees at those stores also undergo training both in the Spanish language and Hispanic culture.

In-store signs and television advertisements marketed directly to Hispanic households tout Food Lion's message of "Sabor Latino," which means "Latin Flavor."

Marketing manager Daniel Herrera declined to offer specifics but said the five stores are "performing extremely well" -- well enough that officials feel comfortable expanding the test program.

Last week, the company opened 13 stores in the Piedmont area all featuring the Hispanic focus, and it didn't take long to see a sales increase.

"The key elements get translated into results almost within a week," Herrera said. "This community is really tight, and the word of mouth travels very quickly."

Food Lion will convert another 22 stores, including 10 in the Triangle, this month, with plans to reopen those stores officially on Aug. 12.

It will also revamp 19 stores in the Charlotte market this summer, reopening those in September.

When all of those conversions have been done, 59 stores, or roughly 10 percent of Food Lion's 503 North Carolina locations, will have the Hispanic focus.

Herrera declined to say how much the store conversions cost or to comment on any plans to expand the new store model further.

The move is a smart one being made by several grocery store chains nationally, said Bill Greer, spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute.

At the very least, most retailers are placing more emphasis on ethnic groceries, he said, citing the institute's annual study on the grocery business, which showed that 61.8 percent of food retailers are increasing ethnic products as a competitive strategy.

"The demand is strong," Greer said. "Food is a very important part of the Hispanic culture. ... We've had several mainstream chains develop whole formats around Hispanic food."

And, Greer added, Hispanic products are also getting a boost from non-Hispanic customers looking for new options.

"Hispanic foods in many respects have gone mainstream."

Source: The News & Observer

Writers sense a trend as modern Hispanic novel evolves

July 9, 2009
By Peter Kelton

While literary meetings in Albuquerque haven't quite gained the stature of Big Sur conferences, they do rise to the level of a healthy literary tributary, according to many of the writers who attended this year's annual National Latino Writers Conference and other seminars at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
 
The novelists that these Hispanic writers recommend gives a clue to what's going on in their thinking. They indicate they have begun to see their words morph into a new kind of Hispanic modernism, an evolutionary maturing that shows a broader perception of what the novel can be. And it's not sensed only in Albuquerque, but wherever Hispanic writers let their thoughts be known.
 
For example, Sandra Cisneros, founder of The Macondo Foundation in San Antonio, held a book signing at the Hispanic center in October of 2006 for her 2002 novel "Caramelo" (Random House). Last month she completed a book tour for the 25th Anniversary edition of her novel "The House on Mango Street" (Arte Público Press, reprinted by Vintage Random House). Both novels were clearly autobiographical. Yet today, among the books she recommends on her web site is "The Uncommon Reader," a novella by Alan Bennett (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The British author imagines a world in which literature becomes a subversive bridge between powerbrokers and commoners. The genre is a long way from Cisneros' coming-of-age Mango story of 1984.
 
Writers at a recent seminar suggested a variety of Hispanic novelists as "must" reading. They were: Roberto Bolaño (Chile), Benjamín Prado (Spain), Blanca Riestra (Spain), Israel Centeno (Venezuela), Edmundo Paz Soldán (Bolivia), Ricardo Menéndez Salmón (Spain), and the venerable Carlos Fuentes (Mexico).
 
What's happening apparently involves a combination of traditional magic realism and the newer gritty reality of the McOndo movement. The latter pokes fun at Macondo, the fictional town created by Nobel Prize writer Gabriel García Márquez in his classic "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (HarperCollins). Cisneros named her foundation after Macondo, a graphic example of magic realism, but the foundation's writing workshops work toward helping all kinds of young writers in a variety of venues, and has led to numerous book publishings by Macondistas. The next such workshop is scheduled July 29-Aug. 1 in San Antonio.
 
The term magic realism, according to Dr. Robert P. Fletcher of West Chester University in Pennsylvania, describes the prose fiction of Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), as well as the work of such writers as Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), Gunter Grass (Germany), and John Fowles (England). These writers interweave, in an ever-shifting pattern, a sharply etched realism in representing ordinary events and descriptive details together with fantastic and dreamlike elements, as well as with materials derived from myth and fairy tales.
 
Fuentes, of course, has written in both styles for some time. "La muerte de Artemio Cruz [The Death of Artemio Cruz]" (Spanish bySuma, English by Penguin Group USA) for example, has a McOndo touch. The revised edition, "The Death of Artemio Cruz: A Novel" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1991) is a better translation. His "Terra Nostra" (Dalkey Archive Press) uses magic realism to move through history brilliantly, according to its reviews.
 
About the McOndo trend, the maturing Fuentes told The New York Times six years ago, "I really support what they're doing," and joked that Fuentes himself belonged to "the prehistoric age." He's published 24 novels.
 
The Hispanic center bestows a literary award every couple of years. Early recipients included Rudolfo Anaya, considered by many to be the founder of modern Chicano literature. Anaya is far from "prehistoric" in the Fuentes sense. He's professor emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. His early novel, "Bless Me, Ultima" (Grand Central) is set in the 1940s, is highly moralistic, and quite distant from the newer Hispanic novels. He still deals in a world of magic, mystery and redemption in his recent book, "The Man Who Could Fly and Other Stories" (University of Oklahoma Press). That distance from Anaya to current Hispanic novels appears about as great as the upcoming 2010 Census will be from the first Census in 1790, done on horseback. The 2010 Census will be done with hand-held computers.

Source: The Examiner
 
 

Hispanics 'Give Higher Ratings in Surveys'

July 10 2009
Source: MRWeb
 
Hispanics in the US, especially those who are more recent arrivals, give higher ratings in product surveys than their non-Hispanic counterparts, according to a study designed by Jeffry Savitz, President of Savitz Research.

Dallas-headquartered Savitz Research offers a bilingual/bi-cultural research division created to help clients understand and address the special needs of the Hispanic market.

In his study, Hispanic and non-Hispanic respondents were asked to assign a numeric value to five rating labels - excellent, very good, good, neither good nor poor, and poor.

Using a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the highest, it was found that Hispanics were consistently giving higher marks to each label (except in the case of ‘poor’) with an average difference of 5.9.

Savitz, who is also Professor of Marketing Research at the University of North Texas, says that the results have significant implications on multicultural advertising and marketing, as well as on which products and services should be offered to Hispanics.

‘Hispanics are taught from an early age that it is in poor taste or inappropriate to openly criticize or berate when asked their opinions,’ Savitz explains: ‘More research is needed to measure the effect of the 'cultural lift' on various categories and other factors.’

Birth of our granddaughter merged two families, two cultures

July 12, 2009
By June Landrum

Recently, we observed the 15th birthday of my youngest granddaughter with a quinceañera. Brihana and her cousins arrived at the lake at Aquarena Springs in a limousine, and she looked like a princess in her pale pink dress and tiara.

Family came from Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Kentucky and San Luis Potosí to join us in Austin. Our minister blessed the occasion and told Brihana that, having reached the age of 15, she is more responsible for understanding her faith, and he challenged her to take that responsibility seriously. He also admonished her (jokingly, on the advice of her father, my son) not to marry until she is 30.

Her aunt, cousin, grandmothers and mother exhorted her to remember her heritage, to respect herself, to look for challenges and to embrace her bright future. Our son Bret had moist eyes throughout the evening. There was a lovely dinner, followed by dancing, which (I'm told) went on until 2 a.m. We made a quiet exit shortly before midnight.

The quinceañera is a Latino tradition that marks a girl's coming of age. My husband and I are as Anglo as can be. We received our introduction into the Hispanic culture 17 years ago when we met our son's future wife, Mary Lopez.

A year after their marriage, Mary and Bret presented us with our youngest granddaughter, Brihana Rea, her middle name after my mother. I thought she had the fullest head of black hair and the biggest dark eyes I had ever seen on a baby. Brihana's birth was the commencement of the merging of our two families. It wasn't immediate nor is it complete, and on occasion we may not have quite known what to make of each other. But with her birth, our worlds were forever changed and a wonderful life adventure began.

Our home is normally quiet and things are orderly; Brihana's maternal grandmother's home is filled with the aroma of Mexican food and the sounds of exuberant conversation. My husband and I have no extended family in Texas, but we quickly realized that all of Brihana's very large circle of friends were people to whom she was also related by blood.

Brihana is a first-generation American on her mother's side.

Her mother, our future daughter-in-law, came to the United States when she was 8 years old. She didn't know a word of English. My husband and I have no idea when our ancestors first called America home or the circumstances that brought them here, so I am a bit envious of Brihana's knowledge of her Hispanic heritage and the ease with which she lives in both cultures.

Brihana enthusiastically dances to Tejano music and enjoys Jane Austen novels. Her first words were Spanish, but those quickly faded and now she takes Spanish classes. She loves frijoles as well as fried chicken. Brihana was baptized as an infant as is the Catholic custom, and when she decided she was ready, her Protestant grandfather baptized her, too. She looks forward to spending time at her mother's family ranch in Mexico and to visiting her dad's family farm in Kentucky.

Brihana had been excited about her quinceañera for years. She took part in several such celebrations in Mexico, and her mother and aunt often talked about their quinceañeras, when at last they were allowed to wear makeup and high-heeled shoes and go dancing. As for me, I had no idea what a quinceañera was, and it took several tries to learn to pronounce it without Brihana having to suppress giggles.

The union of our families has provided us with some good laughs. I'll never forget the day 6-year-old Brihana came crying to her mother — it seemed her Mexican cousins had told her she couldn't go with them to the flea market because she wasn't Mexican.

Tearfully, she begged her mother, "Can't I be Mexican just long enough to go to the flea market?" I laughed so hard my sides ached.

Our families celebrate birthdays and other happy occasions together. Two of Brihana's cousins call my husband and me "Grandma" and "Grandpa," and we love them as our own. We have shared a picnic or two and the experience of cheering for Brihana at T-ball and volleyball games.

I traveled with Brihana and her mother to Mexico for a whirlwind trip of sightseeing, a 50th wedding celebration and a traditional Mexican quinceañera, steeped in pageantry and tradition.

I wouldn't take anything for those nine days, and I saw a Mexico I didn't know existed. I would not have had that fascinating opportunity without the gracious help of the Hispanic side of Brihana's family.

At the beginning of this column, I wrote that we "observed" Brihana's quinceañera. But the truth is we celebrated her quinceañera, the Lopez and Landrum families together.

Thank you, Brihana, for opening these doors for us.

Source: Austin American-Statesman

6.5 Million US Latinos Hungry

July 10, 2009
By Donna Maldonado-Schullo

Nearly 1 in 5 Latino households is suffering from food insecurity nationwide in one of the worlds richest countries.  According to the latest US Department of Agriculture 2006 report on food security, Hispanics are disproportionately affected with 19.5 % of Latino households reporting food insecurity, well above the national average of 10.9% (Non Hispanic white average is 7.8%). The Tri State area is seeing an increase of households struggling to adequately feed their families. The averages nationwide for 2004-2006 were 11.3 %; Delaware went from 6.7% to 7.8%, Pennsylvania from 9.5% to 10% of households suffering from food insecurity. New Jersey was unique in lowering the rate to 7.7% from 8.6%. But again the prevalence of Hispanics suffering is increasing. In 2006 over 6.5 million of the 35.5 million people who lived in food insecure households were Hispanic. (6922500)

What is meant by food insecurity? As defined by the same report, food security falls into two categories “low food security” is basically defined as a household at times uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food for all household members because they had insufficient money and other resources for food. Whereas “very low food security” is defined as multiple times the food intake was reduced and eating patterns disrupted due to inadequate resources for food.
Are you ‘Food Insecure?’

It is interesting that some of the questions and statements’ used to determine the level of food insecurity are as follows; ‘Were you worried that your food would run out before you got money to buy more?’. “We couldn’t afford to eat balanced meals”. “We relied on only a few kinds of low cost food to feed our children because we were running out of money to buy food”. “In the last 12 months did you ever eat less than you felt you should because there wasn’t enough money for food?” These are just some of the determining factors that define whether a household falls into the category of food insecure. As noted by the report these figures do not include homeless families or individuals, so the numbers could be even higher. Food security is about access on a regular basis to sufficiently nutritional food to sustain the health of your family.
Why?

Only 51% of Latinos are accessing the available food stamp program, according to National Council of La Raza in Dec 2006. In a report entitled “Sin Provecho: Latinos and Food Insecurity” it outline numerous aspects of this issue. One of the findings of the report based on previous studies noted that in many Hispanic communities there were 38% less fresh fruit and vegetable retailers than in areas with smaller Hispanic populations. Many of the retailers that are in the area do not have the full range of affordable food products that enable Latino families to have complete and nutritious diets.

Eligible Latinos are missing out on the food assistance programs. The same report continued that more than 3 million eligible Latinos are missing out. Part of the reason is the huge confusion surrounding the eligibility rules as the law has been changed a number of times.
Latino children are eligible for the National School breakfast and lunch program (NSLP) irrespective of immigration status

The law as it stands at the moment according to the research for this article “ migrant children, identified as eligible by a local school or district… are automatically eligible for free school meals without the need for the migrant family to fill out an application” (Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, Public Law 108-265). There is NO restriction for participation in these programs for children based on immigration status according to The Migrant Legal Action Program based in Washington DC, and the US Department of Agriculture. The best approach would be to speak directly to your child’s school to let them know you want your child to participate in the program. More information can be found at the US department of Agriculture web site www.fns.usda.gov (available in Spanish), or the Migrant Legal Action Program at www.mlap.org

The food stamp program (FSP) provides benefits through electronic benefit transfers or paper coupons, to eligible low-income households. These coupons can then be used to purchase food from participating retailers. According to the US Department of Agriculture the ‘Farm Bill’ restored food stamp benefits for qualified immigrants who have lived in the US as qualified immigrants for at least 5 years. Qualified immigrants are lawful permanent residents (holders of green cards).Certain non-citizens such as those admitted for humanitarian reasons and those admitted for permanent residence are also eligible for the program. Eligible household members can get food stamps even if there are other members of the household that are not eligible.

The potential to improve health and nutrition through government food and nutrition programs is significant especially for our children in school. As discussed in the report by National Council of La Raza (NCLR) those who participate in the food assistance programs show greater nutritional intake, medical savings, and enhanced heath status, and even a reduction in the rate of obesity due to greater access to more nutritional food.

The same NCLR report opened with a statement on the measure to which the US government holds itself on food security;” Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family, including food…” Exercise your rights.

Source: Ponte Al Día

Are Latinos Ethnics or a Racial Minority?

July 9, 2009
By Froma Harrop

Some years ago, I shared cocktails along San Antonio's River Walk with Richard Estrada, the legendary columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Estrada would trace the nuances of the Mexican-American experience while framing it in the long sweep of American history.

I recall saying that U.S.-born Latinos didn't seem so much a racial minority to me as just another ethnic group. He responded with a definitive "yes."

Estrada died in 1999, and I try to imagine his take on the New Haven firefighters' case -- mainly the matter of Ben Vargas, the firefighter of Puerto Rican heritage who joined 17 white firefighters in suing the city. They opposed New Haven's decision to discard a test for promotions because too few minorities passed. Vargas had finished sixth.

Days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the white firefighters' favor, Vargas went out drinking with co-workers to celebrate an impending marriage. When he visited a restroom, someone punched him bloody. He ended up in the hospital. Vargas assumes the attack was retaliation for having joined the suit opposing an affirmative action policy.

A newspaper article shows Vargas sitting over coffee in his suburban Connecticut house. Beside him are his wife and their 3-year-old son Joshua. Out the window you see a deck and lawn leading to woods.

The home could have belonged to any of his firefighting colleagues, be they of Italian, Irish or other ethnicity. The same went for the conversation.

Vargas explained his lifelong ambition to be a firefighter. He spoke of his love for the culture that nurtured him -- "our rice and beans, our salsa music, our language" -- and also gratitude for the opportunity the United States had afforded him. It was boilerplate for the American story.

But late last century, Latinos were included in affirmative action programs. Like African-Americans, they tended to be poor. And they were considered racially different -- that is, "brown" -- even though many are black and some are blond. Their bloodlines may be Indian, European or both. With a different last name, Vargas could have passed for Italian, Jewish or Greek.

Had Latinos been left out and put at a hiring disadvantage to blacks, there would have been no affirmative action programs. And the more groups covered in them, the more support. Vargas' offense was breaking the solidarity that holds together a de facto quota system that most Americans dislike, including many of its "beneficiaries."

The whole concept seems dated in the age of Obama. But to the extent that affirmative action made sense, it did so only for American blacks. African-Americans had suffered a unique trauma of slavery and Jim Crow. No other group came to this country in chains.

Sure, Latinos can talk of discrimination and nasty remarks, but their experience has been largely an immigrant one. Every group that comes here gets beaten up.

Novelist Willa Cather urged greater respect for the Danish women who did laundry and cooked meals on the Nebraska frontier in the 19th century. A hundred years ago, Cajun children were punished for speaking French in Louisiana schools.

As the American generations move away from their foreign origins, the old culture tends to rest more in recipes and less in the sense of being different from co-workers who root for the same football team. That combo platter of identity, rather than race, is what makes Latinos seem ethnic -- and many middle-class blacks, as well.

For Ben Vargas, an affirmative action program added only stress and social discomfort. He is an ethnic in the station house, alongside other ethnics for whom heritage is a footnote to identity, not the headline.

Source: Real Clear Politics

Good news about Latinos often get lost among other events of interest

July 9, 2009
By Victor Landa

As news stories go this one may well be buried under layers of Michael Jackson tributes and post mortems, Sarah Palin’s resignation motives sweepstakes and the Sonia Sotomayor Senate hearings that begin on Monday. But that shouldn’t dissuade us from paying close attention.

In fact, maybe there is a correlation between the Sotomayor story and the recent publication of an interesting study about Latino children and their preparedness for school.

The study, entitled “The Cultural Strengths of Latino Families: Firm Scaffolds for Children and Youth” was published by the Education Writers Association in an effort to induce reporters and editorialists to include the strengths of the Latino community as they write about their poverty, criminality, unemployment and drop out rates.

“Media coverage,” the report’s brief says, “often accents the problems facing Latino children and families, advancing public awareness and policy action. Stories focus on the challenges facing undocumented families, economic poverty or troubling high school dropout rates.

Often lost in this coverage is a careful understanding of the cultural strengths and colorful diversity of Latino groups.”

So what are those stories, those strengths that go mostly unreported?

Here are at least three, according to the Education Writers Web site: more than 8 in 10 Latino toddlers are being raised in two-parent homes, which is comparable to white non-Latino families; dietary and health habits of Latino immigrant parents are stronger than those of average Americans; and Latino adolescents tend to show high levels of obligation to their family, but this sense of obligation can sometimes hinder educational advancement.

This matters, especially in light of the Sotomayor hearings, because hers is a story of achievement, of bootstrap advancement and family strength. There was a report published Monday, July 6, by the Associated Press that stated that many of Sotomayor’s relatives are planning to travel from Puerto Rico to be on hand for the confirmation hearings that start next week. It matters because of her personal history and because of the example of success it presents for all immigrant families.

It matters because of the appropriation of educational and social resources that will be determined by redistricting and next year’s census count. It matters because in this time of economic uncertainty there is a segment of our community that is getting it right.

Researchers call it the “immigrant paradox” because the findings of positive traits go against conventional held beliefs. This story is important if it dispels the idea of a paradox and recognizes the straight forward logic of the exceptional American immigrant.

But we’ll just have to see how the story fares against the backdrop of Michael Jackson’s untimely death, Sarah Palin’s mysterious politics and whatever scandal or celebrity sighting that happens to surface in the next few days.

Source: San Antonio Express-News